FAQ | What’s This New 5G UC Icon on My iPhone? What Does 5G UC Do?

Last week, most of the web’s tech news focused on Apple. With the launch of the new iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, no one really looked at what other companies were doing – that’s why you may have missed T-Mobile’s newest 5G UC announcement.

Likewise, you might be wondering why your iPhone now shows 5G UC instead of the regular 5G icon. But don’t worry, it’s good news for you.

Meet T-Mobile Ultra Capacity 5G

Neville Ray, T-Mobile’s president of technology, shared on Twitter that many T-Mobile users will start to see 5G UC on their iPhones.

This means that these users will now have Ultra Capacity 5G, which is faster than regular 5G.

As The Verge explains, T-Mobile offers different band networks of 5G. The regular 5G icon will represent T-Mobile’s low-band networks, which are called 5G Extended Range. This means that if you see the regular 5G icon, you’re under a slower network that covers a larger area.

If you’re on 5G UC, on the other hand, you’ll be using either T-Mobile’s mid-band network or the company’s high-band mmWave network.

It sounds a bit too technical, but this means 5G UC has considerably better speed than regular 5G.

Of course, T-Mobile isn’t the only company with different 5G bands. For instance, Verizon uses 5G to refer to its slower, low-band 5G, and it uses 5G UW for its ultra-wideband, faster 5G. AT&T does the same, but it calls it 5G and 5G Plus.

As of right now, T-Mobile’s 5G UC is available for all iPhone 12 users and will also be available on all iPhone 13 models. T-Mobile also confirmed that 5G UC would be available to more devices in the future with software updates.